Dealing with Disconnection

I had a recurring conversation with a good friend the other day. It's a conversation I've had before with her as well as others. It boils down to how to make meaningful connections with others, especially within church communities. In an age when we have so many ways to forge connections with people -- phones, e-mail, get-togethers, church functions that center around just about every topic you could imagine -- why do I find that so many of my associations with others are shallow?

When I was younger, making meaningful friendships seemed easy. I became friends with people in my elementary, junior high and high school classes. In college, the people in closest proximity to me-- the ones who lived on my dorm floor -- became my good friends. I still have some of those friends. I still keep in touch with a few dear friends from high school and a few from college.

Once I graduated from college and lived on my own, though, friendships became more difficult to start and maintain. At church, where you'd think friendships would be easily made, connections were difficult. I was single until I was 31, and I always got the sense in the churches I attended that I was out of place. I wasn't married, didn't have kids. So where did I belong? Nowhere, it seemed. I went to church, but nothing really kept me in any one community. Not singles groups. Not Bible studies. I "church hopped" for a while in search of some sort of meaningful connections with people.

I thought it would become easier when I got married. The reality is it's just as difficult. When I was single, I could forge connections with individuals. Now my husband and I go to church as a couple. We are together, a unit. On the one hand, I enjoy that. Marriage is a wonderful thing, and Mike has become my dearest friend. On the other hand, I think it's harder to make friends as a couple. You both have to click with the people you're trying to make friends with. That's not always easy.

I find that churches separate people into age groups -- teenagers, college students, young marrieds, young families, parents of teenagers, seniors, etc. -- and those separations keep us from thinking we have anything in common with those who aren't in our same age bracket or season of life. Singles feel like they can't relate to moms. Young moms find it hard to see what they have in common with empty-nesters. I find that most people in their 30s like me and Mike are busy with their own families. Couples our age with kids have demands on their time that we don't have. And most other couples we know who have been married the same amount of time we have -- three years -- are in their mid-20s, not their mid-30s. Sometimes that difference feels like a generation gap. (I, too, can be stuck in the age-bracket mentality.)

We certainly haven't done everything we can to reach out. It takes intention. Friendships aren't going to happen like clockwork like they did in high school or college. It's too easy to just go to work, come home, flip on the TV, surf the Internet and disengage from the things that demand our attention all day long. (Funny how the things meant to connect us -- namely technological advances like cell phones and e-mail -- really can leave us feeling more isolated.) It's easy not to invite another couple over for dinner or ask an individual friend to coffee. It's easy to stay in our own little world -- nothing given, nothing received, nothing shared, nothing gained.

I don't have an answer to this dilemma of how to make meaningful connections. I just notice that I've had this conversation a lot lately with others who have noticed the same thing in their lives. It tells me I'm not alone, that it's a more common experience than I realized. Perhaps that's common experience enough for us to reach out to one another.

"We appreciate what we share, we do not appreciate what we receive. Friendship . . . is not acquired by giving presents. Friendship . . . comes about by two people sharing a significant moment, by having an experience in common." -- Abraham Joshua Heschel

A Few Days in the City by the Bay

It's amazing how much your perspective can change when you get away from your "normal" life. My husband Mike and I returned Tuesday night from a five-day getaway to San Francisco. The last time I was there I was 12 years old. Mike grew up in San Rafael, Calif., just north of San Francisco. But like most people who grow up near popular vacation spots, he had never really been a tourist in his own town.

Mike had never been to Alcatraz (former federal prison on an island a mile from SF), so we went there. We walked the streets of Chinatown and North Beach, where we found the perfect pizza place to have dinner and a cute Italian pastry shop where we had coffee. We watched the sunset from China Beach and Baker Beach, both with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We strolled through Sausalito and took a drive through the Marin Headlands on the north side of Golden Gate. We took a cable-car ride to Union Square, ate a great fish dinner at Pompei's Grotto on Fisherman's Wharf and had ice cream at Ghirardelli Square. The wharf area is less charming and more touristy than I remember it from 20 years ago. Chinatown was less of a culture shock (I've traveled to other parts of the world since I was last there as a kid). North Beach, where San Francisco's Italian immigrants settled, felt very much like a little pocket of Europe.

We also spent a day at the University of California-Berkeley, where Mike went to college in the late 80s. We visited the KALX, the student-run radio station at Cal where Mike got his start in radio. It was enlightening to see the town where Mike grew up and the campus where he attended college. It's a part of his life I've never seen, so it's good to put all the pieces together. In January, we both visited my college campus in Columbia, Mo.

Spring was in full swing in the Bay Area. Coming home to Denver, where the trees are still bare and spring is a couple of weeks away from really getting started, I miss the green grass, the blooming trees and flowers I grew accustomed to over the past few days.

Most of all it was nice to leave the busy-ness of life behind for a few days. It's especially nice when vacation seems like it was longer than it actually was -- not because it was bad, but because you're able to leave everything behind and relax. Today it's back to work for both of us, but we go back a little more rested and a little less hurried. Vacations are good.

First signs of spring

It's spring! Or at least it feels that way today. Spring in Denver has a way of teasing you with 70-degree days, then blasting you with an ugly reminder of winter. I took this photo today of the first flowers of spring at the entrance to the condo complex where I live.

Spring this year seems especially welcome. We've had a crazy winter. People in the Denver area have become spoiled by our drought-winters; it snows only a couple of times, then remains "perpetual spring" the rest of the season, with 50- and 60-degree temperatures the norm. This year where I live, we had four feet of snow on the ground by New Year's Day. The snow melted by mid-February, but you would have thought people here were stuck in their houses for months. Everywhere I went, people told me how sick they were of the weather. (The truth is, we don't know what REAL winter is here . . . )

Every year I am surprised by the first flowers of spring, the purple and yellow blooms that push through the cold, hard earth to reveal their brilliance. Not far behind are the happy daffodils and elegant tulips that bow in the breezes of April. We plant the bulbs of these flowers in the autumn, then forget about them all winter long. As the snow falls and the winter winds whip across the landscape, something is happening underneath, even though we can't see it. It takes months to see the signs of spring, but it never fails -- the flowers always bloom.

It reminds me of a life lived with God. Sometimes the winters of our lives seem to last forever. The snows fall, and the winds seem unbearable. But before winter ever started, God planted a seed in our hearts to germinate underneath the barrenness of winter. We are convinced the spring will never come. But just like the surprise of the first flowers of spring, the seeds of our hearts seem to bloom out of nowhere, and suddenly winter starts fading. The grass turns green again. Out come the daffodils and tulips. The trees start budding. And everything becomes new again.

Saying thanks to the Greatest Generation

I'm only half-way through the book Flags of our Fathers, by James Bradley, and already it's on my list of favorite books. The story holds more meaning for me because of some recent experiences.

Last spring my husband Mike and I spent a few days in Normandy, France, as part of a two-week trip to England and France. We were so moved by a tour we did of the D-Day beaches of Normandy that we both felt compelled to do something with what we had learned. (The tour was led by Battlebus Tours, http://www.battlebus.fr/, which I highly recommend if you're planning a trip to Normandy. The tour was fantastic and emotionally moving.) Neither Mike nor I remember learning much about World War II during history classes in school. Our grandparents were too old to fight in the war, and our parents were just children at the time. We're getting our dose of history -- living history -- now.

Through a friend, Mike made contact with an organization that sends veterans, free of charge, back to the sites of their battlefield campaigns. The focus of the next few years is World War II veterans, who are dying at a rate of about 1,000 per day, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The foundation raises money and sponsors trips for veterans back to Europe and the Pacific. It also organizes trips to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The point is to honor these veterans before they die, give them a forum to tell their stories (which many have refused to talk about for six decades) and let them experience the appreciation of today's generations for their service to our country.

Two weeks ago I had the honor of accompanying 24 World War II veterans from Colorado on a three-day trip to the National World War II Memorial in Washington. These 23 men -- and one woman -- served in a variety of roles during the war. Some flew bombing missions over Europe in the 8th Air Force. Others landed on the beaches of Normandy, marched across Europe and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a six-week fight in the middle of a harsh winter that resulted in more than 80,000 American casualties. Others were Marines who fought in the Pacific front of the war, including the invasion of the tiny island of Iwo Jima, a horrific 36-day battle that makes the D-Day landings at Normandy almost pale in comparison. Iwo Jima -- and the famous photograph of Marines raising a flag at the top of Mount Suribachi on the island -- is the subject of Flags of our Fathers.

As I read the book, I think of Joe Weinmeier, a former Marine who was a "flamethrower" on Iwo Jima. He wore his heart on his sleeve during the trip to Washington; the tears came easily as he described what the trip meant to him. As he gazed up at the Marine Memorial in Washington, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, Joe marveled that he made it through the battle alive . . . while so many others didn't. I think also of Max and Shirley Brown, sweethearts who married after the war. Max was on Iwo Jima while Shirley was doing her part at home. Shirley joined the Marine Corps Women's Reserve at age 20 and became a truck driver at Parris Island, S.C. In Washington two weeks ago, Shirley stared up at the Marine Memorial, then glanced at her husband of nearly 61 years standing next to her. "To think he came home to me," she said. "And we've had 60 years together."

I also think of my own children, whenever the time is right for me and Mike to have them. They won't have the honor of meeting these men and women, of sitting down and hearing the stories that made them the Greatest Generation. But I'll be able to tell some of their stories, only fragments of history though they may be. Someday I'll stand at the Marine Memorial, my children at my side, and say to them, "I met some of the men who were there."

Teaching journalism ethics

I feel a bit conflicted every semester around this time. I teach journalism at a college in Denver, and the curriculum includes a segment on ethics. I've run into plenty of ethical decision-making moments in my journalism experience at newspapers and magazines. It's one thing to grapple with ethical issues in a newsroom with other journalists. It's another thing to try to teach college students what the ethical standards are.

Journalists generally have a poor reputation among the public regrarding ethics. The stereotypes abound. Journalists are pushy and insensitive. They care only about getting the story, not caring for the people involved in stories. I contend we get many of these stereotypes from the mass media's own portrayal of themselves -- i.e. television shows and movies with characters who are journalists. Not many people have ever had personal contact with an individual journalist, so their perceptions of journalists come largely from fictional characters on unrealistic programs.

I went to college at the University of Missouri-Columbia, one of the country's finest journalism programs, where my professors taught me "situational ethics" -- essentially, figure out what's right and wrong based on the situation. There is no absolute right and wrong you can apply in each and every situation. I can see that at play in certain areas of journalism, but not all. What about stealing? Is it OK for a journalist to break into an office and steal a document off someone's desk, for example, because the story is important enough to steal for? You can always figure out a way that the ends justify the means.

That brings me to the ends justifying the means in our personal everyday ethics. Individualism is king. Courtesy must be convenient to be worthwhile. The prevailing point of view is, "If it serves me in some way, then fine, I'll abide by the standard." If it serves me to be nice to someone, then I'll be nice. If I can get ahead in my job, then I'll help someone else. If it makes me look good, then fine, I'll play along and pretend like it matters to do the right thing. And this comes into play not just in "big things" like going after work promotions or dealing with a difficult family member. How about taking a ream of paper from the office supply room, lying to your child's teacher, butting in front of someone in line at the grocery store?

I find it ironic that surveys show a generally poor public perception of journalists and their ethics. The average person doesn't have higher ethical standards than the journalists they criticize. In fact, a 2005 study done at my alma mater shows journalists rank among doctors and pastors in using the "best quality ethical reasoning" when making decisions. Journalists in the study were significantly more ethical than the average adult.
Surprised?